45- Why rapture theory is wrong and anti biblical



45- Why rapture theory is wrong and unbiblical? (4 -page version)

Are you Pre, Mid, or Post? Most Fundamentalists and Evangelicals know that these words stand for pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. The terms all refer to the point at which the rapture is supposed to occur.  “Rapture” is the recently proposed (18th century), doctrine taught by certain groups of fundamentalist Christians which holds that at the end of the world Jesus will come on the clouds of heaven, and the righteous (“the saints”), will be "raptured," that is, caught up into the air, to be with Christ. They will be separated from sinners who will remain on the earth to endure a period of great suffering (“the Great Tribulation”). In other words, it is the belief that the "born-again Christians” or those who profess a personal belief in Christ, accepting Him as their personal Savior, will be removed from the earth in order to spare them from undergoing the time in which “the wrath of God” will be displayed against all the peoples of earth. The word Rapture is connected to the Latin word rapiemur, which appears in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in the Latin Vulgate Catholic translation of the Bible (1 Thess. 4:16–17). There is no equivalent to “rapture” in the Greek manuscripts. Rapiemur means "we shall be raised up" or "caught up." The text cited reads, The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16–17)..

Origins of the Rapture theory: Rev. Morgan Edwards (1722 –1795) was a Welch historian of religion and a Baptist pastor who taught “the rapture” before its popularization by John Nelson Darby (1800–1882). In 1742-44 Morgan Edwards wrote a book on the modern-day “Rapture” doctrine, published in 1788. Thus began the contemporary “Rapture” melodrama. There’s no record prior to 1788 of the “Rapture” doctrine being taught or of its details being published by anyone of the Church Fathers of the Catholic Church or even by the founding fathers of Protestant Reformation.

A made-up story hyped-up by the media: The belief in the Rapture is mainly rooted in the fourth and fifth chapters of 1 Thessalonians, which are placed into an elaborate chronology of "end-time" events based on other passages from Revelation, Daniel, and Matthew 24. Often the Rapture is called the "day of the Lord" which will come like "a thief in the night" (1 Thess. 5:2). After this secret removal of believers, would come the rise of the Antichrist and the implementation of the "Mark of the Beast" during the seven years of “the Great Tribulation.” At the end of those seven years would take place a third coming of Christ (the First in Bethlehem, the Second at the Rapture and the Third, His Final coming) and Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil. Novels about the end times and the Rapture have been popular fare within Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles since the 1970s. In June 1970, a youth pastor from Southern California published a book titled The Late Great Planet Earth. It would become the best-selling nonfiction book of the decade, going through more than 100 printings totaling 35 million copies. In 1995, Tyndale House published Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, co-authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Left Behind is a series of 16 best-selling novels by dealing with the Christian dispensationalist view of the End Times, and offering a pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world. It has sold well over 10 million copies, setting a string of publishing and sales records. The series has been adapted into three action thriller films produced and released by Cloud Ten Pictures. The films are Left Behind: The Movie, Left Behind II: Tribulation Force and Left Behind: World at War.

The Catholic teaching: The Catholic belief in the return of Christ for the Final Judgment, (called the Second coming, with His birth in Bethlehem being the First), is summarized in the Nicene Creed: Christ has died, Christ has Risen, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. The Catholic Church teaches that, at the end of time, Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. At this time, everyone who is dead, just and unjust, will have a bodily resurrection and those who are alive, will have their bodies transformed for eternity. Those still in Purgatory will be released, joining the risen and the still-living, transformed just. Then the Last Judgment will take place. The just will live with God, the unjust will be punished to live eternally without God. All these will happen on the last day as a one-stage event. Catholics do not generally use the term Rapture, nor do they believe in a Rapture that will take place some time before the Second Coming, as do many Evangelicals. The Church has certainly condemned the notion of two resurrections from the dead. Those who are still alive in Christ at His return will be transformed "in the twinkling of an eye and caught up in the clouds with the Lord", but that will take place on the Last Day.

Why the Rapture theory is wrong and against Bible teaching: 1) New theory without any basis in Church history: It is a new theory created less than 300 years ago (in 1788), without any basis in Church history or Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This doctrine was never taught or published by any one of the Fathers of the Church or even by the founding fathers of the Protestant Reformation Movement.

2) A false theory and against Bible teaching: The Bible teaches about only one future “Second Coming” of Jesus, followed by the Last Judgment and the eternal rewarding of the just and punishing of the wicked. Nowhere in scripture is it taught, or remotely indicated, that Jesus will personally and visibly return twice more, as claimed by the rapture believers.

3) Distortion of bible teaching: The most ridiculous notion of the pre-tribulation rapture is that the Church (that is, born-again and saved Christians) will avoid the persecution of the Anti-Christ. This is nonsense. Jesus promised us persecution. The Church grows the most and shines the brightest during times of persecution. Beyond that, the notion is simply unbiblical. It is a serious misinterpretation of Sacred Scripture to claim that Christians will be rescued by God in a Rapture that removes them from the earth either before or during a period of earthly tribulation.

4) Wrong method of interpreting Bible books: The proponents of the rapture interpret passages from one book by using “clues” found in another. Christians had been reading Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians for 1800 years before anyone questioned that Paul was describing the Second Coming. Those who now see in it a Rapture before a period known as the “Great Tribulation” do so by applying a unique method to reading the Scriptures. They read selected parts of Daniel, First Thessalonians, Mathew 24 and Revelation almost as a single piece that explicitly maps out end-time events. This approach has led to a view of all human history known as “Dispensationalism.” The most frequently quoted passages arguing for the Rapture are from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, the book of Revelation, and the Old Testament book of Daniel. Typically, these passages are lifted from their context and shuffled together, in order to create a teaching about Rapture. Two of these passages are representative of a very special style of Bible literature known as “apocalyptic literature.” When this kind of literature is read in a way that respects the historical and literary contexts of the materials used, it becomes difficult to find support for any notion of a Rapture as described and taught today. This means that those who find the Rapture in the Bible are reading many of its diverse apocalyptic passages together without recognizing the different circumstances of the believers to whom each was addressed. Instead, what should be understood as separate apocalyptic books are seen as a single work of prophecy in which future events are clearly and specifically predicted.

5) Flawed foundation: All advocates of the rapture agree that the main argument is based on 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The argument stands or falls depending on the meaning of one word. The Greek verb for "caught up" is harpagesometha. Does it convey the sense of abduction here? No, "[it] combines the ideas of force and suddenness seen in the irresistible power of God" Why would Paul use such a strong word? Let's allow the Bible to speak for itself. The context of the subject begins in verse 13 and concludes in verse 11 of the next chapter. Paul wrote this section of the letter in answer to concerns of the local Christians. As you read verse 13, you discover that Christians in Thessalonica were grieving over the unexpected deaths of members of their congregation. Paul wrote that they should not grieve over this: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus [believers who had died]" (verse 14). Was he responding to a worry about whether Christ would rescue believers from the Great Tribulation? No, nothing is said of this. Nor is there anything in these verses that intimates Christ making a swooping pass by the earth to snatch off a few people to take them to heaven. These verses refer only to the doctrine of the second coming, at which time Jesus sets foot on the earth. "...that whether we wake or sleep [remain alive or die], we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing." Any claim that "the comfort" of these verses was about being snatched away to heaven takes incredible license with the Bible. Paul's reason for using such a strong word as harpagesometha was to reassure people that, at Christ's return, God would reunite believers who remain alive with believers who had died. The dead won't be behind in any way!

5) Modern and popular heresy: The "Rapture” is a bizarre but popular modern Christian heresy that involves a mysterious, non-Biblical figure called “The Antichrist” and his minions who are secretly manipulating world events to bring about a horrible “End Times” in which all the true believing Christians will suddenly disappear, and all the remaining people in the world will be subjected to horrible oppression and persecution before Jesus finally comes back and a final bloody worldwide battle begins. Hence, the Rapture theory is rejected and condemned as heresy by the vast majority of Protestant denominations. It is rejected as heresy by all Orthodox authorities, and it is rejected as heresy by the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Catholic Church. They consider it not just wrong, but extremely wrong -- dangerously wrong, in a very serious way. Dark, distorted, twisted, and deluded are the typical reactions amongst mainstream Christian thinkers.

6) Apocalyptic books leading to wrong conclusions: Catholic theologians are troubled by the literal acceptance of a seven-year period at the end of history, known as the Great Tribulation. Belief in the Great Tribulation assumes that at the end of time God will unreservedly punish all the inhabitants of earth with war, disease, pestilence, earthquakes, and various other natural disasters. This is an extremely literal interpretation of passages of biblical apocalyptic literature written in some of the most symbolic language found in all of Sacred Scripture. In apocalyptic literature, such wholesale threats of divine punishment are intended to convey to those who are persecuted the sure and certain reality of God’s justice. It is, in the first place, the assurance that God recognizes their suffering and, secondly, that God opposes the injustice that is responsible and will bring an end to it.

7) Against the teaching of the Church: The Rapture forms part of a particular millennial expectation based on a particular use of Biblical texts. The Catholic Church has explicitly rejected both this kind of speculation and this way of interpreting the Scriptures. The Council of Ephesus (431) denounced it as “a deviation and a fable.” It was denounced again in 1516 at the Fifth Lateran Council. In 1824, the work of Manuel Lacunza was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. In 1941 and 1944, responding to questions from the Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, the Congregation of the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), again rejected this kind of millennial speculation with explicit reference to the work of Lacunza. In April 22, 1998, Pope John Paul II warned again against this way of thinking. In interpreting Biblical texts, the Church has stressed that it is essential that we take account of their literary genres since truth is expressed differently in different types of writing (Vatican II: Dei Verbum #12; CCC #110). In its 1993 document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, the Pontifical Biblical Commission both reaffirmed this (Section I-A) and rejected as inadequate the so-called “fundamentalist” interpretation at play in the Rapture doctrine and scenario (Section I-F). As John Paul II expressed it on April 22, 1998, “We know that the apocalyptic images of the eschatological discourse about the end of all things should be interpreted in light of their intense symbolism.” It is not language that should be taken literally.

8) New theology underestimating God’s mercy: Rapture is a new doctrine—one never taught or believed before the eighteenth century—that requires a particular understanding of God’s action in history. It is an understanding that overemphasizes a kind of divine retribution and underemphasizes God’s mercy, and one that ignores the human history and culture in which the inspired word of God was written. A literal acceptance of this supposed period of torment as part of God’s plan for earth is troubling enough. When it is coupled with the belief that God would ensure that all Christians will escape, this suffering is baffling.

Resources & sources: confer page 11

45- Why rapture theory is wrong and unbiblical? (Amplified version)

Are you Pre, Mid, or Post? Most Fundamentalists and Evangelicals know that these words stand for pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. The terms all refer to the point at which the rapture is supposed to occur.  “Rapture” is the recently proposed (18th century), doctrine taught by certain groups of fundamentalist Christians which holds that at the end of the world Jesus will come on the clouds of heaven, and the righteous (“the saints”), will be "raptured," that is, caught up into the air, to be with Christ. They will be separated from sinners who will remain on the earth to endure a period of great suffering (“the Great Tribulation”). In other words, it is the belief that the "born-again Christians” or those who profess a personal belief in Christ, accepting Him as their personal Savior, will be removed from the earth in order to spare them from undergoing the time in which “the wrath of God” will be displayed against all the peoples of earth. The word Rapture is connected to the Latin word rapiemur, which appears in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in the Latin Vulgate Catholic translation of the Bible. There is no equivalent to “rapture” in the Greek manuscripts. Rapiemur means "we shall be raised up" or "caught up." The text cited reads, The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:16–17).

The Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulation Rapture: The Protestant "rapture" theories can be divided into three major categories: 1) Pre-Tribulation rapture: First, the Church (the true-believers), along with those who died in Christ (who have risen), will be "raptured," or snatched away to be with Jesus. Then, there will be a seven-year period, called the Great Tribulation, which will feature the reign of the Antichrist (anti-Christ). The Antichrist will fool the world (those remaining) into thinking he is God. He will start out as a great political leader who will bring about peace and prosperity. Three and a half years into his reign, he will reveal his true nature and begin to wage war on Israel. This will lead to the “Battle of Armageddon” which will take place at the end of the seven years. During this battle, Jesus and His "raptured" Church will return a second time, to save the Jews who have now been converted and to wipe out the Antichrist. Then Jesus will reign on earth for 1,000 years with the Church (the millennial reign). At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan will be released again with his minions to tempt those who have been born during this thousand-year period. His release will lead to the battle of “Gog and Magog” after which Satan, along with all those from the millennium who have fallen under Satan's sway, along with the unjust who have not risen, will be thrown into the lake of fire forever. 2) Mid-Tribulation Rapture: All of the above with the exception that these people believe that the "rapture" happens in the middle of the tribulation, just before the Antichrist reveals his true nature. 3) Post-Tribulation Rapture (or the amillennial view): Again, the same as the first two, but the Church goes through the entire Tribulation. (Let's define some common terms: the root word, Millennium, comes from the Latin for one thousand years (Rev. 20:4). A postmillennialist believes that Christ returns to establish the Kingdom on earth after the thousand years; an amillennialist doesn't believe that the Kingdom is coming at all; a premillennialist believes that Christ returns before the Millennium to set up His Kingdom as described in Revelation 20:4).

Origins of the Rapture theory: Rev. Morgan Edwards (1722 –1795) was a Welch historian of religion and a Baptist pastor who taught “the rapture” before its popularization by John Nelson Darby (1800–1882). In 1742-44 Morgan Edwards wrote a book on the modern-day “Rapture” doctrine, published in 1788. Thus began the contemporary “Rapture” melodrama. There’s no record prior to 1788 of the “Rapture” doctrine being taught or of its details being published by anyone of the Church Fathers of the Catholic Church or even by the founding fathers of Protestant Reformation. John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was ordained in the Church of Ireland and worked there to convert Catholics from their "folly." Darby eventually left the Church of Ireland, joining a dissident group called the Plymouth Brethren of which he soon became a prominent leader. About 1830, he began teaching that Jesus’ coming at the end of time would be preceded by a “rapture of the saints.” He invented a system of looking at the Bible called Dispensationalism. This system essentially tries to divide the Bible into time periods. God deals with men differently according to the time period in which they live. Darby preached that in the last seven years of human history, God would only be dealing with the Jews and trying to win the Jews to Christ. In order to do this, Darby took a bunch of texts from the Book of Revelation, St. Paul’s letters and Daniel, out of their contexts, and used them to support his theory. Some members of his Brethren community objected that this teaching was not biblically based. But Darby dismissed all criticism, asserting that the teaching had been revealed to him by God. He eventually distanced himself from the Plymouth Brethren and traveled extensively in the 1860s and 1870s in Europe, the United States, and Canada, where his views were very influential, and appeared in the Scofield Reference Bible, printed first in 1909.

A made-up story hyped-up by the media: The belief in the Rapture is mainly rooted in the fourth and fifth chapters of 1 Thessalonians, which are placed into an elaborate chronology of "end-time" events based on other passages from Revelation, Daniel, and Matthew 24. Often the Rapture is called the "day of the Lord" which will come like "a thief in the night" (1 Thess. 5:2). After this secret removal of believers, would come the rise of the Antichrist and the implementation of the "Mark of the Beast" during the seven years of “the Great Tribulation.” At the end of those seven years would take place a third coming of Christ (the First in Bethlehem, the Second at the Rapture and the Third, His Final coming) and Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil. Novels about the end times and the Rapture have been popular fare within Fundamentalist and Evangelical circles since the 1970s. In June 1970, a youth pastor from Southern California published a book titled The Late Great Planet Earth. It would become the best-selling nonfiction book of the decade, going through more than 100 printings totaling 35 million copies. In 1995, Tyndale House published Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, co-authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Left Behind is a series of 16 best-selling novels by dealing with the Christian dispensationalist view of the End Times, and offering a pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world. It has sold well over 10 million copies, setting a string of publishing and sales records. The series has been adapted into three action thriller films produced and released by Cloud Ten Pictures. The films are Left Behind: The Movie, Left Behind II: Tribulation Force and Left Behind: World at War.

The Catholic teaching: The Catholic belief in the return of Christ for the Final Judgment, (called the Second coming, with His birth in Bethlehem being the First), is summarized in the Nicene Creed: Christ has died, Christ has Risen, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. The Catholic Church teaches that, at the end of time, Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. At this time, everyone who is dead, just and unjust, will have a bodily resurrection and those who are alive, will have their bodies transformed for eternity. Those still in Purgatory will be released, joining the risen and the still-living, transformed just. Then the Last Judgment will take place. The just will live with God, the unjust will be punished to live eternally without God. All these will happen on the last day as a one-stage event. Catholics do not generally use the term Rapture, nor do they believe in a Rapture that will take place some time before the Second Coming, as do many Evangelicals. The Church has certainly condemned the notion of two resurrections from the dead. Those who are still alive in Christ at His return will be transformed "in the twinkling of an eye and caught up in the clouds with the Lord", but that will take place on the Last Day.

The Catechism on end times: The definitive Catholic teaching on the end times is contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church under the discussion of the article of the Creed, "From thence He will come again to judge the living and the dead." [CCC #668-682]. As the Creed infallibly teaches, the Second Coming is associated with the end of the world and the Last Judgment. Therefore, it is NOT associated with any earlier time - such as the establishment of a "Millennium." The Catholic Church specifically condemns "millenarianism," according to which Jesus will establish a throne in this world and reign here for a thousand years [CCC #676]. She teaches instead that Jesus already reigns in eternity (1 Cor. 15:24-27, Rev. 4 & 5), and that in this world His reign, established as a seed, is found already in the Church [CCC #668-669]. This is the "thousand years," which is the Hebrew expression indicating an indefinite, long period of time - in this case, the time between the First and Second comings. This period of time is called the Era of the Church, or, in other words, the last days in the broadest sense. The Book of Revelation situates this era between the persecutions of the Roman antichrists of the first century and the final unleashing of evil at the end.

Why the Rapture theory is wrong and against Bible teaching: 1) New theory without any basis in Church history: It is a new theory created less than 300 years ago (in 1788), without any basis in Church history or Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This doctrine was never taught or published by any one of the Fathers of the Church or even by the founding fathers of the Protestant Reformation Movement.

2) A false theory and against Bible teaching: The Bible teaches about only one future “Second Coming” of Jesus, followed by the Last Judgment and the eternal rewarding of the just and punishing of the wicked. Nowhere in scripture is it taught, or remotely indicated, that Jesus will personally and visibly return twice more, as claimed by the rapture believers.

3) Distortion of bible teaching: The most ridiculous notion of the pre-tribulation rapture is that the Church (that is, born-again and saved Christians) will avoid the persecution of the Anti-Christ. This is nonsense. Jesus promised us persecution. The Church grows the most and shines the brightest during times of persecution. Beyond that, the notion is simply unbiblical. It is a serious misinterpretation of Sacred Scripture to claim that Christians will be rescued by God in a Rapture that removes them from the earth either before or during a period of earthly tribulation.

4) Wrong method of interpreting Bible books: The proponents of the rapture interpret passages from one book by using “clues” found in another. Christians had been reading Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians for 1800 years before anyone questioned that Paul was describing the Second Coming. Those who now see in it a Rapture before a period known as the “Great Tribulation” do so by applying a unique method to reading the Scriptures. They read selected parts of Daniel, First Thessalonians, Mathew 24 and Revelation almost as a single piece that explicitly maps out end-time events. This approach has led to a view of all human history known as “Dispensationalism.” The most frequently quoted passages arguing for the Rapture are from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, the book of Revelation, and the Old Testament book of Daniel. Typically, these passages are lifted from their context and shuffled together, in order to create a teaching about Rapture. Two of these passages are representative of a very special style of Bible literature known as “apocalyptic literature.” When this kind of literature is read in a way that respects the historical and literary contexts of the materials used, it becomes difficult to find support for any notion of a Rapture as described and taught today. This means that those who find the Rapture in the Bible are reading many of its diverse apocalyptic passages together without recognizing the different circumstances of the believers to whom each was addressed. Instead, what should be understood as separate apocalyptic books are seen as a single work of prophecy in which future events are clearly and specifically predicted.

4) Flawed foundation: All advocates of the rapture agree that the main argument is based on 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The argument stands or falls depending on the meaning of one word. The Greek verb for "caught up" is harpagesometha. Does it convey the sense of abduction here? No, "[it] combines the ideas of force and suddenness seen in the irresistible power of God" Why would Paul use such a strong word? Let's allow the Bible to speak for itself. The context of the subject begins in verse 13 and concludes in verse 11 of the next chapter. Paul wrote this section of the letter in answer to concerns of the local Christians. As you read verse 13, you discover that Christians in Thessalonica were grieving over the unexpected deaths of members of their congregation. Paul wrote that they should not grieve over this: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus [believers who had died]" (verse 14). Was he responding to a worry about whether Christ would rescue believers from the Great Tribulation? No, nothing is said of this. Nor is there anything in these verses that intimates Christ making a swooping pass by the earth to snatch off a few people to take them to heaven. These verses refer only to the doctrine of the second coming, at which time Jesus sets foot on the earth. "...that whether we wake or sleep [remain alive or die], we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing." Any claim that "the comfort" of these verses was about being snatched away to heaven takes incredible license with the Bible. Paul's reason for using such a strong word as harpagesometha was to reassure people that, at Christ's return, God would reunite believers who remain alive with believers who had died. The dead won't be behind in any way!

5) Modern and popular heresy: The "Rapture” is a bizarre but popular modern Christian heresy that involves a mysterious, non-Biblical figure called “The Antichrist” and his minions who are secretly manipulating world events to bring about a horrible “End Times” in which all the true believing Christians will suddenly disappear, and all the remaining people in the world will be subjected to horrible oppression and persecution before Jesus finally comes back and a final bloody worldwide battle begins. Hence, the Rapture theory is rejected and condemned as heresy by the vast majority of Protestant denominations. It is rejected as heresy by all Orthodox authorities, and it is rejected as heresy by the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Catholic Church. They consider it not just wrong, but extremely wrong -- dangerously wrong, in a very serious way. Dark, distorted, twisted, and deluded are the typical reactions amongst mainstream Christian thinkers.

6) Apocalyptic books leading to wrong conclusions: Catholic theologians are troubled by the literal acceptance of a seven-year period at the end of history, known as the Great Tribulation. Belief in the Great Tribulation assumes that at the end of time God will unreservedly punish all the inhabitants of earth with war, disease, pestilence, earthquakes, and various other natural disasters. This is an extremely literal interpretation of passages of biblical apocalyptic literature written in some of the most symbolic language found in all of Sacred Scripture. In apocalyptic literature, such wholesale threats of divine punishment are intended to convey to those who are persecuted the sure and certain reality of God’s justice. It is, in the first place, the assurance that God recognizes their suffering and, secondly, that God opposes the injustice that is responsible and will bring an end to it.

7) Against the teaching of the Church: the Rapture forms part of a particular millennial expectation based on a particular use of Biblical texts. The Catholic Church has explicitly rejected both this kind of speculation and this way of interpreting the Scriptures. The Council of Ephesus (431) denounced it as “a deviation and a fable.” It was denounced again in 1516 at the Fifth Lateran Council. In 1824, the work of Manuel Lacunza was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. In 1941 and 1944, responding to questions from the Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, the Congregation of the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), again rejected this kind of millennial speculation with explicit reference to the work of Lacunza. In April 22, 1998, Pope John Paul II warned again against this way of thinking. In interpreting Biblical texts, the Church has stressed that it is essential that we take account of their literary genres since truth is expressed differently in different types of writing (Vatican II: Dei Verbum #12; CCC #110). In its 1993 document, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, the Pontifical Biblical Commission both reaffirmed this (Section I-A) and rejected as inadequate the so-called “fundamentalist” interpretation at play in the Rapture doctrine and scenario (Section I-F). As John Paul II expressed it on April 22, 1998, “We know that the apocalyptic images of the eschatological discourse about the end of all things should be interpreted in light of their intense symbolism.” It is not language that should be taken literally.

8) New theology underestimating God’s mercy: Rapture is a new doctrine—one never taught or believed before the eighteenth century—that requires a particular understanding of God’s action in history. It is an understanding that overemphasizes a kind of divine retribution and underemphasizes God’s mercy, and one that ignores the human history and culture in which the inspired word of God was written. A literal acceptance of this supposed period of torment as part of God’s plan for earth is troubling enough. When it is coupled with the belief that God would ensure that all Christians will escape, this suffering is baffling. We do not need a Rapture to face the future with faith. God’s word, the Bible, is a continuous source of comfort, courage and challenge. We wait in joyful hope the return of our Savior, but we do not forget the many ways the Good News of his first coming calls us to love and serve our neighbor—and those we might otherwise consider our “enemy”—today and tomorrow. (L-13)

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